Hurn, Enright, Hanley and Taylor look to be the best value picks in the coming weeks. Problem is, of course, that this round is not the right round to trade them in!
The other problem is, do you trade in someone who will score 90-95 when there are options who should score over 100-105 (looking at Bartel and Burgoyne)?
I already have quite a few almost keepers like Gunston, Wright, Higgins, Pavlich, Grimes, Polec, Macrae who may require upgrading later in the season - or perhaps they just become D7/M9/F7?
Actually, your team is a good example of one method of attack in completing your team, using the "buy value" creed strongly. First can I just add, in my opinion Burgoyne isn't a "should score over 100-105 option", I'll accept Bartel in that range, and use him in the example below. For this exercise let's ignore bye problems etc, and just look at the players, their prices and expectations. Should you get Taylor or Bartel?
Bartel is priced at $531k which would mean to break even he would need to score at around 105. Coincidently, about what we expect of him.
Taylor is priced at $388k which would mean to break even he would need to score at around 77. It's not unrealistic to expect Harry to return around 90/game.
So the difference is $143k in your bank, and 15 less points in your total. Now here's where it gets tricky.
There's no doubt filling your team this way uses less trades, as you need less dollars to facilitate your upgrades. The $143k can realistically be expected to bring a further 22 to 28 points when used in additional upgrades. There comes a tipping point though, where you have filled your team with players outperforming their price, but underperforming the top 6 to 10 (or 3 to 4 for Rucks) of their respective position. These players can then be further upgraded late in the season, as in theory they too have grown in value, and become easier upgrades. I think the trick is to limit your numbers to say 2 in each of your Def and Fwd line, and possibly 3 in your Midline,
BUT most importantly, choose players that realistically have a chance of filling the F5/6, D5/6, M7/8 slot, so if you chose well, you may not need to upgrade them, or if disaster hits, and your trades are tied up fixing injury/suspension problems, you aren't caught short. You may have over-concentrated this thinking in your Fwd's, but I like the general concept of what you have done. There would be Little point in Trading in a Taylor type player if he cost the equivalent of 50/game, and was going to return 70/game. Yes, its value, but it's too far from D6. The subsequent upgrade is still a further step up, and he's no chance of filling D6 in a successful season.
The importance of buying value cannot be over-emphasised.
If you are buying Selwood at $540k, and getting 115/game from him, you have to be at an advantage over someone buying McVeigh at $520k and getting 105/game from him. You have just bought a 10/game advantage for $20k!
Similarly, if you can fill your middle to lower order Prems at $25-$30k less/spot than your opponent for a similar point return you will make 10 upgrades for the price they'll make 9.
It sounds easy, and obvious, but each season I am advising people against things like trading in NRoo at $584k in round 5. You need him to return 117/game to justify it, and it just won't happen! 3 weeks later, NRoo's has dropped $90k, and he has scored at 68.3 in that time!
Here is something I seriously suggest you all stop and consider. When you trade a player in at, or near, their peak price, you are locking, and guaranteeing failure nearly every single time! In most cases the player can't possibly return the points you have paid for, and you are competing against Coaches that are getting more points than they paid for! Put it this way, would you play this game if you were forced buy points at one price, but your opponents got to buy points at a 20% discount? Probably not. So why are you are buying badly priced players, like NRoo in round 5?!
I'd like to point out this was not directed at tracygrim, who to the best of my knowlege never had any interest in NRoo in round 5. It is just a general rant on how important buying value is, with an eye on the fact that you must also try and make sure you have some of the top performers for each position in your team, hopefully without overpaying for them!